2023 March Oak Cliff Advocate

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FOREVER NOT

A reality TV show couple looking for lasting love finds permanent bracelets at Mod + Jo

Story by CHRISTINA HUGHES BABB

IN EPISODE NINE, SEASON THREE, OF NETFLIX’S LOVE IS BLIND

, contestants Nancy Rodriguez and Bartiste Bowden walk into Oak Cliff jewelry store Mod + Jo where they order matching infinity bracelets to symbolize their eternal bond.

“This is as permanent as it gets,” Bowden tells his fiancé, as shop owner Jordan Flynn welds together two ends of a dainty gold bracelet (which can be cut off with quality scissors or rewelded for a $10 fee). “We’re locked in now.”

In summer 2021, Flynn and marketing manager Danielle Nezwek received a call from a production company whose representatives had seen one of Mod + Jo’s near-forgotten TikTok videos about the jewelry shop’s services.

“They were quite vague about what they wanted us for at first, until we agreed to work with them,” Flynn says.

As it turned out, Mod + Jo would appear during a mid-series episode of a reality TV program in which contestants meet from individual pods that hide their physical appearance, spend a few episodes “dating” and hopefully fall in love with someone, sight unseen.

Pairs who connect get engaged and, during the last episodes, decide at the altar if they will go through with marriage.

The middle few episodes are spent in the real world, which, in season three, is Dallas.

As the contestants navigate their weird relationships and decide what to do come wedding day, they spend time living together, dancing, drinking and treating one another to gifts. Enter Mod + Jo. Producers scheduled within a few days of that initial call,

once Flynn signed an agreement to not disclose anything overheard or seen during recording until the show aired in late 2022.

“We didn’t know this, but it was kind of their final date before the altar,” Flynn says. In all, the recording took several hours. The shop remained open, with a sign posted on the door notifying customers that filming was underway.

Flynn and Nezwek chuckle about watching themselves on Netflix more than a year later.

“I felt kind of silly, like I didn’t realize it, but I just had this giant grin on my face. I don’t remember smiling like that,” Flynn says. “They would cut and then we would move, cameras and lights and all, and go to the cart where they were getting their jewelry put on.”

Filming took place at Mod + Jo’s Tyler Street store. They have since moved to Bishop Avenue.

Spoiler: Nancy and Bartiste’s love was not as enduring as their bracelets. And while things didn’t go as hoped for the couple at the altar, the effect on business has been fantastic, the owners say.

“We got a good response from being on the show. People still reference it when they come in,” Flynn says. “I feel like we got a really premium section of the show, so we have had people come in wanting the same bracelet as Nancy. And she was really nice to us on social media.”

Love is Blind , streaming on Netflix, dropped three encore episodes in early 2023. The new episodes showcase several recognizable Oak Cliff, West Dallas and East Dallas restaurants and venues.

This year’s theme:

SHOW US IN THE 2023 CONTEST DEADLINE

LEARN MORE AT DART.ORG/ARTCONTEST

Annai Gonzalez cooks in her kitchen where many of her TikTok videos are filmed.

OAK CLIFF’S MASTER CHEF

Annai Gonzalez is inviting the world into her kitchen through TikTok

Interview by EMMA RUBY | Photography by SHELBY TAUBER

If you are a user of TikTok, chances are you’ve been sucked into a cooking video a time or two.

The popular videos usually show an at-home chef moving briskly around their spotless kitchen, rapidly cutting produce, blending ingredients and roasting something that makes a satisfying sizzle sound. Videos generally end with a picture-perfect plating, a bite and a nod of approval.

Annai Gonzalez, or @flickofthewhisk on TikTok, has over 225,000 followers on the app who follow along with her lighthearted and cheery cooking videos.

Gonzalez takes viewers through every step of her cooking journey, and scrolling through her videos is like flipping through a visual cookbook.

“What pushed me to do content was to show people,

hey, cooking is not that hard. Like if I could do it, and I learned through just watching TV and Food Network, I’m pretty sure anybody else can do it,” Gonzalez says.

While Gonzalez makes a wide range of dishes, she especially enjoys sharing traditional Mexican recipes with her followers while bolero music plays in the background.

Gonzalez says she often chooses songs she grew up

Gonzalez adds a sprinkle of seasonings to a tray of vegetables.

listening to for her videos as a way of tying her cooking back to her family’s roots.

“Music that my grandma played while she cleaned on Sundays or cooked big meals, even music that my parents would blast on the weekends,” Gonzalez says.

In one video, which had over 730,000 views, Gonzalez cooks chilaquiles verdes. It is one of several videos that show Gonzalez making her salsa from scratch, and her followers salivate in the comment section.

“Girl, you just made me hungry,” one follower commented.

“That’s all I ate for breakfast in Mexico,” said another.

Gonzalez says she often uses

her videos to show Mexican recipes because she thinks the cuisine can be intimidating for some. Recipes passed down through generations are usually based on intuition and verbal instruction, which can be difficult for beginner cooks.

“You know, if you’d ask your grandmother, she’d be like, ‘Oh, just a little bit of this and a little bit of that, eyeball it,’” Gonzalez says. “So I kind of wanted to jump in and show people like hey, it doesn’t have to be difficult. Let me show you how easy it can be for you to enjoy this traditional food.”

Gonzalez originally worked at a law firm, but after she received an apron on the 11th season of the popular cooking competition

MasterChef, she gained the confidence to pursue content creation and cooking full time.

“Being someone with not much culinary background and just being a home cook, it was pretty exciting and kind of intimidating,” Gonzalez says. “Not going to lie, having to meet Gordon Ramsay and all these other chefs, it was kind of a big break for me.”

Gonzalez says she had never spent much time watching MasterChef before going on the show and had no idea what to expect when she joined. So when she was the second person sent home in her season, she wasn’t disheartened. She says she cooks with “passion and love,” and she

Gonzalez pulls apart a grilled cheese sandwich paired with homemade tomato soup.

felt the timed element of the competition discouraging.

“I always say cooking is a dance in the kitchen,” Gonzalez says.

In the last two years, Gonzalez says her love for cooking has only continued to grow, as has her fanbase.

“I like to romanticize food,” Gonzalez says. “I mean, I wake up every day and just think about food. A lot of people ask me, ‘How do you come up with these recipes?’ And I’m just like, well, I’m always hungry all the time.”

NO SLOWING DOWN

MATT HILLYER RETURNS TO THE STAGE

Story by SIMON PRUITT |

Photography by JULIA CARTWRIGHT

Matt Hillyer is Dallas music. The hometown product has been entertaining for nearly his whole life, sending shockwaves into just about every country ballroom in the state. Hillyer is releasing his third solo album, Glorieta

“Glorieta is a place right outside of Santa Fe; my mom has a spread down there,” Hillyer says. “When the world shut down, I packed my youngest daughter in the car and went out to see her.”

“Glorieta” doubles as both the album name and title track for the thumping Americana record.

“There’s a feeling to the song about getting out, getting out of Dallas,” he says.

After his Glorieta pilgrimage, Hillyer joined a songwriters group with other Dallas artists. The group requires its members to write and submit one song each week. Hillyer says most of the songs on Glorieta came from the group.

“During COVID, I thought if we don’t come out of this with a boatload of songs, we’re not real songwriters,” he says. “If you work out that muscle, it’s going to get better.”

The album is Hillyer’s first release since his rockabilly band Eleven Hundred Springs disbanded

Matt Hillyer is celebrating the release of his album Glorieta with a show at the Kessler Theater this March.

after performing their farewell show at the Granada Theater. Founded by Hillyer and bassist Steven Berg in 1998, it quickly grew to iconic in the Dallas music scene with songs like “We’re From Texas” and “Raise Hell Drink Beer.”

“I’m happy with the way we closed that chapter,” Hillyer says. “We did something long enough that we can look over our shoulder and see the way we influenced some musicians in the same way that we were influenced too.”

On March 25, Hillyer celebrates the release of Glorieta at the Kessler Theater with a show featuring special guest Bart Crow.

As Hillyer enters a new stage of his career, he looks to lean on the style that’s kept him working in Dallas for nearly four decades.

“Expect a lot of the same flavor,” he says. “It’s still me writing the songs.”

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Avery-Jai Andrews dances in the sanctuary of the Arts Mission Oak Cliff building. The space was formerly a church, and the nonprofit has maintained many features of the original building.

A Strong Spirit

AVERY-JAI ANDREWS IS LEADING

ARTS MISSION OAK CLIFF’S NEWEST CHAPTER

Story by EMMA RUBY | Photography by SHELBY TAUBER

WHEN AVERY-JAI ANDREWS walks into work every morning, she often speaks into the rafters of the building on South Windomere Avenue that Arts Mission Oak Cliff calls home.

Once an abandoned church, the space has been transformed into a performance and arts gathering and work space since it was taken over by the organization in 2017.

“She really is a character because it’s like, who she brings here and what she brings out of them, it is not due to any skill of a fallible man,” Andrews says of the building. “This place literally creates pure magic, and I think that is part of the lives that have been lived here, the histories that live here.”

In September 2022, Andrews was named interim executive director of Arts Mission Oak Cliff after founder

Anastasia Muñoz decided to take a behind-the-scenes role with the organization to focus on her growing family.

The organization puts on productions (they most recently brought Cabaret back to the Dallas theater scene), hosts yoga classes and “Beyonce Ballet,” displays art installations and even has a sound booth for recording artists, Andrews says.

While Andrews is now bursting with enthusiasm for Arts Mission and its projects, her entrance into the Dallas arts scene was a somewhat reluctant one.

Andrews is a dancer who grew up in North Texas and attended Booker T. Washington High School. And, like many artists, she had her eyes set on New York City.

She attended New York University, and spent time in New York, Germany and Israel before coming back to Dallas to start a dance company.

But after producing her first show, Andrews says something “wasn’t quite right.”

“The community part was missing. I realized that it wasn’t just about the dance company and that it was I was seeking something deeper and bigger,” Andrews says.

It was a moment of “synchronicity” when she joined Arts Mission Oak Cliff shortly after that first show and was able to get her hands on a community-focused arts initiative.

Andrews started out as a member of the Arts Mission exchange program in 2018 — a program that allows artists to utilize

the space in exchange for several hours of work a week. Over time, she added more and more responsibilities to her plate.

Andrews says she suspects Muñoz was mentoring her during that time, although she didn’t realize it until more recently. But Muñoz says she knew early on that Andrews had the energy and passion to run with Arts Mission Oak Cliff, once she was ready.

“I saw that in her from the get, and just knew that she had big, big things in her future,” Muñoz says. “I saw it even that first day, I was like, ‘Man, this is the kind of person that I would feel comfortable

giving back to.’”

Muñoz describes Arts Mission Oak Cliff as “her baby,” and Andrews as “her person,” so it was a natural transition between the two.

Andrews still runs her dance company, produces, choreographs and is even exploring other mediums for her art, but running Arts Mission comes with its own set of challenges.

Andrews joined the board of the organization as they began the transition into being a nonprofit and says she suddenly found herself dealing with paperwork and fundraising, things a dancer doesn’t necessarily think they will have to juggle.

Not to mention building upkeep. Andrews says the church has a “strong spirit.”

“Just keeping all the bathrooms working, all of a sudden, I’m very comfortable with toilets. I understand them a lot more,” Andrews says.

The church is a part of Winnetka Heights Historic District, meaning all of the changes and renovations made to the building have to be approved by the city.

And there is one major change Andrews hopes to see in the next few years.

“There is no access to the sanctuary right now that is ADA compliant. So you can get to the underground through that side ramp door, which was step number one … But we want to have a lift here. It’s built into the plans for the building,” Andrews says.

Andrews estimates it will cost at least $50,000 to buy an elevator and have it installed in the building, but she says it is a major

Arts Mission Oak Cliff founder Anastasia Muñoz says she had hoped Avery-Jai Andrews (pictured) would become a leader in the organization from the first time the women met.

priority for the organization.

Part of the funding for that elevator will come from Arts Mission’s spring fundraiser, PROM. This year, PROM will be on April 22.

The fundraiser will also raise money for the artist in residency program, monthly artist showcases and the growing staff at Arts Mission Oak Cliff.

PROM is an opportunity for members of the community to dress up and come to Arts Mission for a night of festivities without the pomp and circumstance of traditional galas, Andrews says.

Instead, Andrews says the idea of PROM is creative, nostalgic and “a little kitsch.”

It is also an opportunity for local artists to attend the type of event they may not usually be able to because of cost, Andrews says.

“We recognize it is a fundraiser, but there is no reason that a local artist shouldn’t be able to come to the fundraiser that’s supporting them,” Andrews says.

Andrews has been back in Dallas for a while now and says over the years of working at Arts Mission, she has come to deeply believe in the benefits of nurturing artists in our city instead of perpetuating the idea they have to move to cities like New York or Chicago to succeed.

She says she “did the travel thing,” and brought back inspiration from how other countries “engaged with art” and supported it.

That type of accessibility and support for the arts is what Andrews hopes to continue providing as she leads Arts Mission Oak Cliff.

“Being able to offer high quality work at a variety of experiences and a variety of types of art in your neighborhood, I think that is ideal. That is what art should be,” Andrews says. “You shouldn’t have to leave your neighborhood and pay a whole bunch of money to be able to engage to be a part of it.”

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THE APPRENTICE

SINGLETON TATTOO IS TATTOOING BY THEIR OWN RULES

Story by EMMA RUBY | Photography by LO KUEHMEIER

When you walk into Singleton Tattoo, the first thing that will probably draw your eye are the two taxidermied giraffe heads that stand in opposite corners of the room.

Their names are Jeffrey and Sally.

Ejay Bernal’s tattoo studio is bright and airy, and covered in art like most tattoo shops.

Unlike most tattoo shops, his station in the back of the studio is surrounded by glass tanks that house scorpions and tarantulas. Two pythons, named Sprinkles and Owen, live in the back room of the store.

Bernal says the animals are the shop’s “mascots.”

Victoria Bernal, Ejay’s wife, runs operations at the shop and says that, while unconventional, each artist at Singleton Tattoo has contributed to the unique environment.

“We’re an open concept studio. So I mean, there’s a lot of places that have private rooms and kind of just

Right: Victoria Bernal's back tattoo blends colorful and black and gray art styles.

“ALL I TATTOOED WAS JUST JESUS AND ST. JUDAS.”

Victoria and Ejay Bernal stand in front of one of the two taxidermied giraffe heads that call Singleton Tattoo home. The Bernals purchased one of the giraffes at a taxidermy shop in Austin, and the second was a gift from a friend. a friend.

keep to themselves. But here we are forced to be around each other, so we want to be able to love being here,” Victoria says.

Singleton Tattoo opened in West Dallas in 2018, and the Bernals transformed the former taqueria into the tattoo parlor that has gained a massive following throughout North Texas.

Ejay started his tattooing career in 2007 at Saints and Sinners, a shop located on West Davis Street that is a staple in the Dallas tattoo industry. Ejay says as an apprentice at the Oak Cliff shop, he developed many of the artistic styles he was known for in his early career.

“Growing up in Oak Cliff, I got pushed into realism. Like all I tattooed was just Jesus and St. Judas, like back-toback,” Ejay says.

When he opened Singleton Tattoo, he decided to hone his style. Now he specializes in geometric stipple, patterns made up of small, shaded dots, and black and gray artwork. Black and gray artwork is a specialty for many of the artists at Singleton, although each artist uses it in different ways.

The open concept at Singleton Tattoo allows for each artist to interact with one another, and Ejay says he regularly finds himself drifting between booths in his free minutes to check out the other artists’ work. He says he has no problem sending a client to another artist if their style better matches the client’s goals.

That kind of culture isn’t the norm in tattooing, Ejay says, but when he and Victoria started Singleton Tattoo, they weren’t looking to recreate the norm.

“I think that’s the big reason why we’re booked; no one here really has that huge ego. We’re not the tattoo artist who thinks they have that huge rockstar thing. Everyone here really tries to work with people’s ideas first,” Ejay says.

The artists at Singleton Tattoo are often booked weeks in advance, but, like most tattoo shops, one of their busiest days is Friday the 13th. On Friday the 13th, the shop offers a limited number of small designs for cheap, and Ejay says the line goes out the door and usually wraps around the building.

“We haven’t missed one yet. And honestly, it’s just making tattooing fun,” Ejay says. “I really do have a blast tattooing.”

Since Singleton Tattoo opened, the shop has faced the usual challenges — like ice storms that shut down business for a few days — and unusual ones — like a COVID-19 pandemic that shut down the tattoo industry for a year.

But, the Bernals say the past few years have changed the industry in positive ways too. Victoria says within the last 10 years, the stigma against tattoos has almost disappeared, and new types of people are getting tattoos and becoming interested in the profession.

“Back then people didn’t think it was a normal career, right? So nowadays, everyone sees it as an opportunity. There were lots of very artistic people that just never pursured it,” Victoria says. “Now there’s tons.”

For Ejay, the biggest change he has seen during his 16 years tattooing is the rise of social media. He says the ability to share art and have your work

seen by the entire world led to “the cleansing of the tattoo artists,” where subpar artists either had to fix their craft or leave the scene.

“We’re the only studio in West Dallas and I flex it all the time that we’re the best studio in West Dallas,” Ejay says. “But then I’m not being compared to just Dallas, Texas. It’s like everyone here is being compared to people in France, Europe, Korea. ... It’s what’s on your phone.”

Ejay says that while Singleton Tattoo is breaking away from many stereotypes of traditional tattoo studios, there are some industry traditions that are no different at his shop.

For one, Singleton Tattoo has apprentices who study for three years at the shop and help with desk work, maintenance and other chores while also learning the ins and outs of tattooing.

A rite of passage for apprentices at most studios: tattooing themselves.

“That’s a low brow rule that I guess was shown to me,” Ejay says. “There are tattooers that think it’s mostly fair if you tattoo yourself first. Having someone else, like a victim, I feel like it’s almost predatory. Like you’re just trying to find people to mess up.”

For the first few years of Singleton Tattoo, it was just Ejay and Victoria running the show. Over time, they have added apprentices, artists and piercers, and now they have a nearly double-digit staff.

“I still call myself the apprentice because I still catch myself learning just so much from everyone up here,” Ejay says. “Because I thought I had it down really. And then … I catch myself still learning so much.

Grits and crawfish sauce piquante, pastalaya and vegan red beans and rice topped with vegan sausage from Restaurant Beatrice’s dinner menu.

BIENVENUE TO ALL

Restaurant Beatrice is letting the good times roll

Story by EMMA RUBY | Photography by KATHY TRAN

NINE MONTHS AFTER opening its doors, Restaurant Beatrice was named a 2023 James Beard Award semifinalist in the Best New Restaurant category. Dallas foodies heralded the restaurant as an instant success.

For Restaurant Beatrice’s owner, restaurateur Michelle Carpenter, nothing about the Cajun and Creole restaurant feels instant.

“This has always been in the back of my mind, and front of mind as well. But I was just waiting for the right time, the right moment in the right location,” Carpenter says.

Carpenter made her name in the Dallas culinary scene as the owner and chef of Zen Sushi in Bishop Arts, but she always knew she wanted to open a restaurant that would pay homage to her Cajun roots.

After COVID-19, Carpenter says she sensed a new excitement for food throughout the city, and when a little spot on North Beckley Avenue opened up, Carpenter says “everything just fell into place like it was supposed to.”

When Carpenter set out to develop a menu for the restaurant, she says she wanted to show Cajun food in a new light.

“Cajun and Creole food outside of New Orleans is expected to be average at best, but all foods of all people can be in fine dining settings,” Carpenter says.

Restaurant Beatrice has brunch, lunch and dinner menus that put a Beatrice twist on traditional Cajun and Creole dishes.

The menu changes frequently based on season and what is available from seafood distributors who bring fish and shellfish into North Texas from the gulf, but there are several menu staples that have cemented their place as a constant offering at Beatrice.

For dinner, crowd favorites include the vegan red beans and rice, shrimp and grits, fried chicken, oysters and the fresh catch, which changes as many as three times a week.

Red beans and rice, a dish that traditionally would have meat such as

andouille sausage or chicken in it, was developed in response to Carpenter’s desire to have intentional options for people of all dietary restrictions, she says.

“We didn’t want to do the average vegetable plate,” Carpenter says. “We wanted to make sure that we spent time and we put intent in that dish.”

There is also the Oysters Beatrice, which is a twist on Oysters Rockefeller. Topped with a creamed green trio of collards, mustard and turnips, bacon and absinthe, executive chef Terrance Jenkins says it’s a crowd favorite.

Chicken and waffles is a staple of the brunch menu, and for dessert, the

restaurant sells more bread pudding than Jenkins thought possible.

Jenkins grew up in New Orleans and was a gumbo chef at Commander’s Palace, one of the most famous restaurants in a city known for its famous restaurants. He bounced all around the Dallas restaurant scene, logging time at Rex’s Seafood & Market, Cedars Social and Amberjacks.

When Carpenter started developing Restaurant Beatrice, she brought on Jenkins as a consultant for a fourmonth period where they designed the restaurant menu. But Jenkins never left, and now, he and Carpenter work

Like with many Cajun and Creole recipies, the pastalaya combines an assortment of meats and seafoods including sausage, crawfish and gulf shrimp.

in tandem, constantly developing new dishes.

“I think Michelle and I have awesome communication with each other. It’s one of the first times I feel like an actual partner in a situation instead of just someone coming up with food,” Jenkins says.

According to Carpenter, creating a collaborative and healthy environment was one of her top priorities when opening Restaurant Beatrice. The restaurant motto is “bienvenue to all,” Carpenter says.

Most of the staff at Beatrice live in Oak Cliff, and Carpenter says it was important to her that the restaurant be a community-oriented space.

“A lot of our produce is grown in South Dallas by farmers who live in South Dallas. We want to invest in a neighborhood and people that have been historically underresourced,” Carpenter says. “The

Beard nomination just proves that excellence can come from and be made by Oak Cliff, not just located here.”

Restaurant Beatrice works with four local farms — Joppy Momma’s, Unity Community Garden, Restorative Farms and Profound Foods — to source their produce.

The kitchen at Restaurant Beatrice composts all of their waste, and Carpenter says a pilot program is in development with three of those farms who can use the compost to add nutrients to their soil.

That’s farm-to-table-back-tofarm.

“It feels good every time I put an eggshell in that bucket. I know my next round of vegetables, they’re going to have some good calcium. It’s a good thing to know, and no one’s doing it,” Jenkins says.

Carpenter says she hopes to scale

the composting program to a point where other restaurants can join in and create a model for sustainable restaurant practices throughout Dallas.

For Carpenter, Restaurant Beatrice will never be about the acclaim it has garnered. Instead, it will represent what she thinks a restaurant should look like, feel like and function like, all while embodying the culture of her Cajun family from Louisiana.

“My grandmother Beatrice first taught me how to make roux, and I think grandmothers all over the world have contributed more to the culinary industry than any school or program,” Carpenter says. “Most chefs credit their grandmothers for their interest, their love and their knowledge of food.”

Executive Chef Terrance Jenkins (left), pictured with Michelle Carpenter (right), is a New Orleans native, previously serving as a gumbo chef at the world famous restaurant Commander’s Palace.

Restaurant Beatrice, 1111 N. Beckley Ave., restaurantbeatrice.com

the case of the taken tamarins

Story by EMMA RUBY

missing animals, compromised enclosures and an animal death throughout the month of January plunged the Dallas Zoo into national headlines for all the wrong reasons.

A criminal investigation was launched by the Dallas Police Department to find the culprit of the strange happenings, and a SWAT team and federal investigators from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife department were pulled into the case.

By early February it seemed there might be some answers to the zoo’s month of turmoil, but many were still left wondering:

What just happened at the Dallas Zoo?

chapter 1: code blue

It was just after 10 a.m. on Jan.

BUT THE MORE UNFORTUNATE THING IS WE CANNOT POINT TO A SINGLE CAUSE AND GO FIX IT.”

13 when the Dallas Zoo announced that it would not open due to a “code blue” situation, meaning a non-dangerous animal escaped its cage.

Zoo employees had arrived to work and noticed a clouded leopard — a cat that weighs around 25 pounds and is smaller than a bobcat — named Nova missing from her enclosure.

Harrison Edell, the zoo’s executive vice president for animal care and conservation, said overnight staff had seen Nova in her enclosure just hours before.

“We do have security staff on grounds overnight and we have some animal care staff on grounds overnight,” he said. “At 1 a.m., we have staff who believe that both cats were accounted for in the same spot.”

Nova’s disappearance became a viral Twitter topic almost instantly, and the zoo spent most of the day

stressing that the leopard did not pose a danger to humans and was likely in the trees near her enclosure.

Online, Nova’s disappearance was generally handled with amusement toward the situation.

A headline in D Magazine read, “Dallas Zoo Closes Friday After Failing to Spot Leopard.”

Police were the butt of online jokes after it was reported that the SWAT team initially responded to the code blue.

“We were thinking perhaps a big cat,” said Sgt. Warren Mitchell, a spokesperson for the Dallas Police Department, at a press conference.

With the help of police drones with infrared capabilities, Nova was located in the trees near her original habitat around 4:30 p.m. She was uninjured, and rejoined her sister in their enclosure several days later.

But when police addressed the pub -

lic that evening, it became clear that Nova’s escape had nothing to do with habitat failure or a keeper mistake.

Instead, Nova’s enclosure had been targeted and had a “suspicious opening” in it. Police believed someone had intentionally compromised the enclosure using a “cutting tool,” and they were launching a criminal investigation into what had happened.

A similar cut had been found on the enclosure of langur monkeys, police announced the next day.

All of the langurs were accounted for, and none appeared to be harmed. Officials hesitated to say the breach was connected to Nova’s disappearance, and for the next week, Dallas seemed to slowly forget the incidents had even happened.

Until a vulture was pronounced dead, that is.

chapter 2: suspected avicide

On Jan. 21, animal care employees arrived at the zoo and found Pin dead in his enclosure. The lappet-faced vulture had lived at the Dallas Zoo for 33 years.

A necropsy was conducted and the findings were “very suspicious,” Dallas Zoo President and CEO Gregg Hudson said.

Hudson told the media that Pin had not died of natural causes but rather a wound. But Pin’s death was especially “disturbing” because of the endangered status of his species.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife investigators were brought onto the case since an endangered animal had died.

While police and zoo officials still hesitated to say the incident was connected to the prior cut enclosures, the zoo announced a $10,000 reward for any information that led to an arrest and indictment in the cases.

By this point, the zoo had “substantially increased” its security measures by amping up staff presence at night, more cameras and limiting animal movement within enclosures.

chapter 3: a history of tragedies

Police and zoo officials determined the zoo was not responsible for Pin’s death, but it resurrected past conversations surrounding animal deaths at the zoo.

In October 2021, the zoo announced three giraffes had died within a month’s time. One giraffe died after suffering from liver failure as a result of age, and another had “abnormal liver enzymes.” A 3-month-old giraffe calf was euthanized after an injury.

The calf was the third to die at the Dallas Zoo within a span of six years.

“Losing three calves in six years is really hard on us, but the more unfortunate thing is we cannot point to a single cause and go fix it,” Matt James, an Oak Cliff resident who oversees the zoo’s animal care team, said in a 2021 interview with the Advocate .

Two gorillas also died at the Dallas Zoo within a two-year span, and in 2019, an African dog was killed by other members of its pack just one month after being brought into the zoo.

In 2018, the hippopotami Adhama and Boipelo became parents to the first baby born in the Simmons Hippo Outpost. But that baby hippo died “mysteriously” shortly after being born.

“While Boipelo did assist the calf to the surface of the pool, it

was not soon enough. In reviewing the situation, we know for certain there was no safe way for the staff to intervene to help the calf,” Edell said in a statement after the death.

Perhaps the most dramatic stain on the zoo’s history comes from a 2013 lion attack, which was witnessed by dozens of zoo attendees. A male lion bit and killed a lioness over the course of 15 minutes, witnesses told media outlets.

While zoo employees said they were in shock following the event, a tweet from the Dallas Zoo said that inter-pride slayings are common in the wild and “we may never know why.”

These animal deaths were dramatic and shocking, and cast an uncomfortable spotlight on the Dallas Zoo.

But they had never before been ruled suspicious or caused a police investigation.

chapter 4: taken tamarins

Dallas police were called to the zoo a third time on Jan. 30.

Things had escalated. A pair of emperor tamarin monkeys named Bella and Finn were missing from their enclosure. A statement from the zoo said “it was clear the habitat had been intentionally compromised,” and police believed the animals had been taken.

An arrest affidavit obtained by the Dallas Morning News described the enclosure as “cut and bent in a manner and size for a person to both reach into and/or gain access to” the monkeys.

By this point, the good humor that surrounded the public’s response to Nova’s disappearance had evaporated.

CNN, the New York Times , and other national media outlets had picked up the story of all the strange occurrences. Incredulous social media users repeatedly asked “What is happening at the Dallas Zoo?”

A day later, police released a photo

and video of a man they wanted to speak to regarding the missing monkeys. The man was “not a person of interest currently,” but may have information regarding the case.

The photo showed a young man wearing a blue hoodie and eating a bag of Doritos, and in the video, he could be seen wandering through the front gates.

The photo caught the attention of a family who run a church in Lancaster, Texas, just 20 minutes away from the zoo, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The family recognized the man as someone who had spent time in the church and around the church’s nearby community house; just before Christmas, the family had dealt with a mysterious break-in at the house and found chickens, pigeons, birds and cats, according to the report.

Within hours, police responded to the community house. Bella and Finn were found in a closet in freezing temperatures. The zoo confirmed the monkeys had lost some weight, but were alive and showed no sign of injury.

The $10,000 reward was upped to $25,000.

chapter 5: an arrest

Police arrested 24-year-old Davion

Irvin on Feb. 2 in connection with the abducted emperor tamarins.

Irvin was the man pictured in the photo and video police had released days earlier, and he was charged with five counts of animal cruelty, all relating to the emperor tamarins. Since his arrest, he has also been charged with two counts of burglary in connection with the rips in the langur and clouded leopard enclosures and a sixth count of animal cruelty.

According to the affidavit, police had begun to suspect Irvin after conducting interviews with zoo staff. Employees mentioned a man matching Irvin’s description who repeatedly asked obscure questions about animals and their care, and had been seen entering staff-only areas.

On the afternoon of Feb. 2, police received a call that a man who looked like Irvin had been seen at the Dallas World Aquarium near the animal

exhibits. The affidavit says Irvin was asking questions about the animals and touching the mesh material that surrounded their enclosures.

According to police, Irvin was seen boarding a DART rail shortly after police responded to the aquarium. Irvin was later seen again in the 1400 block of Pacific and was taken in for questioning and charged.

Irvin told police that he “loved animals,” and that he’d pet Nova and intended to steal her before she moved out of his reach.

The same report also says Irvin admitted to taking the emperor tamarin monkeys, and rode the DART rail to the Lancaster home where he “kept his animals.”

If released, Irvin plans to return to

the zoo and steal again, according to the report.

Because of this admission, court documents show that if Irvin makes bail he will be required to wear an ankle monitor to ensure he does not approach “any building and/or company engaged in the display or sale of animals” including the zoo, aquarium and pet stores.

While Irvin faces charges in the clouded leopard, langur monkey and emperor tamarin cases, charges had not been pressed in the lappet-faced vulture case at the time of publishing.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service stated that a resident agent in charge of Dallas is assisting police and the zoo in the investigation, and that, if necessary, the National

Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory can be used for forensic analysis of evidence.

If the federal government chooses to, it is able to prosecute incidents related to endangered animals, such as the lappet-faced vulture.

Police, the zoo and U.S. Fish and Wildlife had not named Irvin as a suspect in the death of Pin the vulture at the time of publishing.

chapter 6: zoodunnit?

While Dallas has answers to most of the incidents that plagued the zoo early this year, a wave of odd zoo happenings in Louisiana and Texas followed.

The Houston Zoo reported a four-inch cut in the mesh surrounding the brown pelican habitat on Feb. 6. While the pelicans were all accounted for and healthy, a Houston Zoo spokesperson said the cut was “the result of vandalism.”

The zoo did not find cuts on any other enclosures.

And on Jan. 29, 12 squirrel monkeys were stolen from Zooisiana, a zoo in Broussard, Louisiana.

The monkey enclosure had been cut open.

Within a week, a 62-yearold man from Opelousas, Louisiana, was arrested and charged with 12 counts of animal cruelty and one count of burglary. Officials are investigating whether or not the incident was connected to the Dallas Zoo, and at the time of publishing they still have not confirmed or denied that the incidents were related.

The 12 monkeys are still missing.

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By JOE STOUT

Could that have been Stevie Ray?

Stevie Ray Vaughan and I started out on similar paths.

We were born one month apart in Methodist Hospital and hailed from similar blue-collar neighborhoods. We started grammar school at the same time in adjoining districts and probably started playing guitar at about the same age.

I like believing that Stevie Ray Vaughan and I had a lot in common. It feels like we do, as we both experienced childhood and adolescence in the beautiful, historic, sometimes gritty neighborhood of Oak Cliff in the ’60s and early ’70s.

Unfortunately, the similarities didn’t include our musical ability.

Even though I lived only a mile or so from him, I never knew Stevie.

At the time, Oak Cliff had dozens of garage-band guitar players who hoped blues and rock would be our ticket to fame. I had some friends and bandmates who crossed paths with Stevie, including one who auditioned him but decided he “wasn’t the right fit” for the band my friend was forming.

Dallas has now embraced the Vaughan brothers’ legacy by erecting the memorial “We Are Music and Music is Us” at Kiest Park. Going there, or driving past the Vaughan Estate when I visit Laurel Land, I wonder

if I ever unknowingly crossed paths with Stevie Ray Vaughan growing up. There are some places where it could have happened.

In the 1960s, the pool at Weiss Park was a mecca for pre-teen and teenage kids in the summer. Radio music by popular bands like the Beach Boys blared on the tinny PA system.

Few people had access to a private swimming pool in Oak Cliff, and due to the pool’s popularity I suspect Stevie Ray may have been there in the same water with the same multitudes of kids, passing the summer days by listening to the latest pop tunes.

A favorite place of mine was Watkins Music Store at the corner of Jefferson and Tyler. I spent hours at Watkins admiring Gibson guitars and Fender amplifiers and browsing the store’s large collection of sheet music.

I often tried to memorize the chords to songs by Jimi Hendrix and Cream. This was decades before the Internet and free online guitar lessons, and the books were expensive.

It’s amazing to think that while I was hanging out at Watkins, there was a kid in Oak Cliff who would one day record his own soaring version of Hendrix’s “Little Wing” and share stages with Eric Clapton.

I’ll bet Stevie Ray, for all his love of music, also spent some time at Watkins.

Jaylee Record Store, just down the street, was a “head shop” patronized by the hippies and flower children of Dallas. The shop had a heavy aroma of incense and sold posters of the guitar heroes of the day.

Local groups often played in the store on Friday and Saturday nights, and I saw some talented guitarists there. The musicians seemed edgier and better than any members of the local bands I knew.

For all I know, Stevie Ray Vaughan was one of them.

The Oak Cliff YMCA was near Adamson High School, where musicians Michael Martin Murphy and Ray Wiley Hubbard attended, and was another live music hot spot.

In the summer, the YMCA hosted Friday afternoon sock-hops and was a second home for many kids like me.

I particularly remember an unknown but talented band who were around my age playing “Jumping Jack Flash” with huge, red Kustom-brand amplifiers.

I wonder if Stevie Ray Vaughan could have been a part of that band, or another one that played at the YMCA.

Some things have changed since Stevie Ray Vaughan and I were kids, but many things haven’t. Oak Cliff is still one of the most beautiful parts of Dallas and a great place to be a kid.

Growing up in Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Oak Cliff

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Muddy Waters backstage at Nick’s Upstairs. Photo by Kirby Warnock.

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